


ForTheFuture

by gearmaster154



Category: Marble Hornets
Genre: F/M, Memory Loss, Mental Instability, POV Third Person Limited, Psychological Horror, Psychological Torture
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-10-16
Updated: 2015-10-16
Packaged: 2018-04-26 14:41:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,847
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5008624
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gearmaster154/pseuds/gearmaster154
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A tale of a young man's descent into madness and obsession, the damage it causes, and the entity that haunts him. Based in the same universe as Marble Hornets, but with original characters and told from a single point-of-view.</p>
            </blockquote>





	ForTheFuture

_It’s there. It’s always there. Always watching, always waiting. The camera doesn’t lie, it can’t. This is no trick of the mind, no illusion. No, this is solid evidence of this thing, this spindly-limbed creature. So why can’t I see it?_

A young man leans back in his office chair, the only sound in the room a worn spring straining against the boy’s weight. A raspy sigh escapes his dry, cracking lips. His eyes, bloodshot and heavy, stare off into some far-off corner of the world. A million thoughts race through his mind so quickly that he can’t discern one from the other and they all blur into one: _why can’t I see it?_

He’s spent hours watching the footage; rewinding moments in his life he has a difficult time believing truly happened. He couldn’t remember them without the aid of the discs on his table.

_Thank God I saved those._

He couldn’t tell you when these events happened, let alone the details of events outside of the footage playing before him. A good portion of his mind is empty, wiped clean at some point in his life just as unclear as the rest of what he saw.

_Why can’t I see it? Why can’t I remember?_

Another thought made itself more abundantly clear. Two questions now lay unanswered in the back of his mind. They dig at him now, scratching into his very being. His head begins to ache and the pain stabs at the backs of his eyes. He rubs them furiously and attempts to blink away the pain but it does not stop. Even if the pain in his eyes ceased, the pain in his mind and being would last so long as those questions remained unanswered.

He has to know. He has to answer those questions. That’s all that matters now. Only then will the pain stop. Only then will he be free of it all.

\--

What had begun as a simple digital scrapbook had slowly turned into a mad goose chase through fading memories. The whole project suddenly became more important than he could have ever guessed. He had planned to keep these memories for the future, even given his YouTube channel the blatant, unoriginal title of ForTheFuture. Now his project is the only link he has with the past. It’s as if he is viewing his life through someone else’s eyes, an outsider looking in.

_Why can’t I remember!_

As if his amnesia wasn’t enough, paranoia has begun to grab at him. It’s the creature, the thin apparition that plagues those faded memories that he looks for in the corners of his eyes. It is always there, always watching, yet he has no recollection of it ever being in his life. The camera, however, cannot lie. It can’t. He has to believe that. He has to trust that because he cannot trust his own eyes. So he films himself. Two cameras dominate the bedroom of his apartment; one trained on himself and the other trained on the door. They are always on, always charged, always watching.

_Always watching. It always watches. It could be here now and I—_

There’s a knock at the door.

_Could that be it? Is it here for me? No… no it wouldn’t knock, would it? How could he know, he’s never seen it. Never heard it._

“Jake? Jake, are you okay?”

A soft sigh releases from the boy as the heavy weight lifts ever so slightly from his shoulders. The voice is feminine, familiar, one he could not forget. At least he has that.

“I just wanted to check on you. No one’s heard from you and you stopped answering calls…”

He rises from the chair and steps toward the door. He stops, hand hovering unsteadily over the brass door handle.

_What if it’s there? What if she can’t see it and it’s there and it takes them? Can he risk that?_

“Jake, I heard you get up. Please open the door.”

He firmly grips the door handle and slowly but surely cracks it open. She stands there, now taken aback by the unkempt, sleep-deprived wreck before her. He pulls the door even further open and steps aside, allowing her in.

“Sorry for the mess…” he starts, voice hoarse. He hasn’t spoken to another person in quite some time. He can’t even remember the last time. It feels strange, yet comforting to have another here. “I’ve been busy.”

“Busy? Busy enough you couldn’t even answer the phone?” She folds her arms across her chest and scans the room, eyes slowing as they pass over the scattered records of his past. Of their past.

“Yeah I… I guess it never occurred to me. I’m sorry; I just got so enveloped in editing all of this. You know, for the project…” He checks the hall. _Why? It’s not like you can see it. Only the camera can._ He shuts the door and turns back to her.

“Jake, have you seen yourself? Hell, have you even left this room?” She turns to him, expression overflowing with worry. He can’t form the words immediately and he stumbles over vowels and consonants that make little sense. She steps forward and takes hold of his shaking hands, looking deeply into his heavy eyes.

_She knows. Just tell her. Maybe she can help you get answers? No, look at yourself! You can’t do this to her. What do you tell her?_

“Well, uh, you know how I get some times. So devoted to things and all…” His words are quiet and even he doesn’t believe himself. _She won’t fall for it. She knows you too well, idiot!_

“Jake, something is wrong with you. This isn’t normal. I mean you have cameras set up in here! People don’t film themselves like that, Jake! Not unless maybe they’re afraid of something.”

_She’s right you know. A normal person wouldn’t do this. But she doesn’t understand. You can’t trust your eyes or your mind. No, they can be tricked. Only the camera tells the truth..._

“You haven’t even touched the rest of the apartment, Jake. It’s dusty and cobwebbed… The trash is just rotting out there… This isn’t you. Jake, I love you and I want the best for you and this isn’t it. So please, talk to me.” She closes the distance between them, still firmly gripping his hands.

He feels sick. The pain continues behind his eyes, now joined by nausea and the welling of tears. She sees his eyes fill up and embraces him tightly. The emotional dams fail and tears flood down his face as he collapses in her arms. She stumbles at first but steadies them. She sits them down on the bed beside them and holds him while he sobs for what feels like days. He couldn’t tell anymore. All of this had felt like a long span of hours, but it’d been much longer. He didn’t even know the date.

_Why can’t I remember?_

\--

“So all of this… for what? You said yourself that you don’t see this thing, right?”

“Haven’t seen it… no. It’s yet to show up again. But why was it there, Kiley? Why can’t I remember it? Why can’t I remember those days? I-I can’t remember…” He begins to shake again and the nausea returns. He slumps over himself, face buried in his hands. She rests a firm hand on his back.

“Have you gone to a doctor? Have you thought about that at all?” Her tone is soft, comforting.

_Why haven’t you? Would it help? Would it answer your questions? Maybe it’s just you? Maybe this is all an illness?_

He sits silent for some time, he doesn’t know how long, long enough to bring that worrisome frown across her face.

“I just… I guess I hadn’t considered it might just be me. You know? I mean, it’s just so hard to believe, you know? That I would just forget so much when… I mean I’ve never had any head trauma. I’ve never been sick like this before!” He begins to sob again.

It was decided. He would seek help.

\--

The doctor was no help. He thought the videos were a prank. However, he showed concern for the symptoms.

_It still leaves questions unanswered. What is that thing? Why was it there? Why can’t I remember? It has to be connected… right? That thing, the memory loss, they have to be linked._

“The doctor told me they can’t say what’s wrong until they do a brain scan.” He reports to her, still exhausted from the lack of sleep. He had tried to sleep in the few days prior to the doctor’s appointment, but it only came in spouts, which were viciously interrupted by vivid nightmares of that _thing._

He had cleaned himself and his apartment up and it had brought a bit of positivity back. Kiley moved in with him for the time being, at least until he got better. He hasn’t stopped filming, however. He picked up a camera specifically to carry around with him. She doesn’t understand and he can’t fully explain.

“I can’t trust my eyes. They lie… they can be deceived. Optical illusions, you know? But the camera… it picked up that thing and… if it is the cause of my memory loss then I’d like to be able to see it again.” He tells her. She shakes her head and steps away, unaware of what to do or say. The man she’d fallen in love with has changed, become damaged in a way neither of them could have been ready for.

_How could we have been? We don’t even know what we’re dealing with. We don’t even know if it’s there. Maybe it is all me? Maybe I was always like this… No, no she would have told me. Have I felt this way before? What if all this is a sign? What if it’s coming back? Why can’t I remember?_

“I can’t do this alone...” He breaks the awkward silence one night later in the week. “You know what happened to me last time. I can’t let that happen again. You and I both know that.”

She nods and takes hold of his hand. “We swore we’d be with each other through everything. This counts.”

He nods and kisses her.

\--

To top off his illness, he has developed a cough. It is only slight, for the moment, but seems resistant to whatever cough syrup he downs. Kiley continues to show worry for him, but his next appointment is still an unfortunate two weeks away. Sleep continues to evade him and the questions still ache his mind. He can’t find rest or peace. Even in the little bits of sleep he manages to find he is haunted by thoughts and visions of that thing and his past life, or at least what he’s seen of it.

He remembers vividly that one night he shot upright from an unsteady sleep, soaked with sweat and gasping for air. Kiley awoke, startled by his sudden attack, and attempted to comfort him to no avail. He can’t, however, remember what it was that haunted him. _Why can’t I remember?_ He sat awake that night, upright in his bed, while his love fell into a restless sleep beside him.

She’d become like him, in a way. She rarely rested, obsessed with keeping him healthy, protecting him. She is always at his side, always awake when he needs her, always watching. Everyone watches. Yet none of them can truly see. They are blind, yet they continue to watch.

_Why? Why do we continue to watch for something we cannot see? What if we stopped watching? Would we feel better? No… no that’s stupid. We have to watch, we have to be ready. It will come back. If the nightmares are true, it will come back._

\--

The cough has worsened. Still a week out from his appointment and he’s now spitting up blood. He hides it from her, washes it down the sink before she can see him. _She doesn’t need to know._ He can’t be confined to that place. He won’t have his cameras and he can’t trust his eyes. Another bloody puddle slides down the drain and he looks at himself in the mirror. He barely recognizes himself. His weight has dropped as he has barely eaten and his eyes are constantly shadowed, heavy from a need to rest. But he can’t. It won’t let him. He won’t let himself now, not with what’s become of him.

_It must be coming for us. This must be a sign. I can’t let it take her too._ He returns to her in their bedroom and, without a word, sits at her side. She looks at him for quite awhile, waiting for him to speak the words that he cannot find.  _You have to tell her. She has to be ready. She can’t know about your suffering, but she must know about this. You have to make her leave._

_NO! I can’t make her leave! I need her here! I need her here…_ Tears begin to snake down his cheeks as he stares off into the lens of his desktop camera. He feels the weight of her arm around his shoulders, a physical reminder of his burden. _I need her here… but I can’t see this happen to her…_

_You have to make a choice: her or yourself. It won’t let you have both._

_NO! There has to be a way… what if we leave? What if we just run and never look back?_ He quickly stands, inadvertently knocking her from his side. Again he feels that cold shiver of paranoia rattle his mind and he turns towards the door, camera now in hand. There’s nothing, but the camera sputters and the video tears.

“It’s here…” He hears himself mutter, voice hoarse from his cough.

“Wh…what do you mean?” He takes a tight hold of her wrist and approaches the doorway. Swiftly he aims the camera down the left hall, towards the door. Nothing. _Good, your eyes are telling the truth._ He steps out into the hall and pulls the camera toward the right hall. The video tears and sputters violently as he settles on it. That thin, faceless apparition stands with arms out stretched and head cocked.

Quickly he runs, dragging her behind him. Then it hits him, that all-too-familiar pain in his chest and he collapses to the carpet. The coughs come in violent torrents and blood splatters on the carpet from his mouth.

“JAKE!” She’s gone down with him, but she catches herself at his side. She tries to help him up but he shoves her away from, thrusting the camera in her hands. He’s felt this before. The pain, the fear, the nausea; it is so familiar yet he can’t place when he’s felt it before.

“Just go!” He’s interrupted by another torrent of coughs before he speaks again. “While you can…”

She stands, camera in hand, and for the first time sees it. It looms over him, long black arms beginning to wrap around as if to embrace him. She runs.

\--

She runs for her car and, shaking, fumbles the keys into the ignition. She peels out from the driveway and out onto the road, driving far away from that haunted home. Tears begin to overwhelm her vision and she pulls to the side of the road. She collapses over the steering wheel, sobbing into her arms for what feels like hours. What else is she to do? Go back and fight that thing? Hope that he’s there and not dead? How can she know for sure? How can she know it’s safe? Maybe his camera will help? Maybe she missed something…

\--

Just as the coughs had ripped at him, thousands of thoughts race through his mind. He can’t focus on any of them as his body seizes under the influence of this… _thing._ Then all at once it is gone. All of it. When he next awakes he is in his car. He shoots up in the driver seat, frantic, as if awaking from a nightmare. _Where am I? How did I get here?_

_Why can’t I remember?_

He feels for his phone and fishes it from his pants pocket. He is wearing different clothes, but he pays no mind to it. He looks at the date. November. _November? Wasn’t it… wasn’t it July when I was with her? Her… Kiley! Where is she!_ He tries to call her, but the call drops. He looks around the outside of the car. He’s on a trail somewhere in the woods, but he can’t pinpoint where. He scans the inside of the car. He has his keys and a camera bag.

_The camera! It can’t lie!_ He rifles through the bag for the camera only to find his only source of recollection drained of battery. _Dammit!_ He has to get home, or at least to some place where he can charge it. He _has_ to know what happened in those four months.

 


End file.
